


Legerdemain

by juniperwick



Category: Black Books, Magician RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperwick/pseuds/juniperwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when a famous magician wanders into a run-down second-hand bookshop in London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legerdemain

Bernard couldn’t for the life of him remember how he’d got there or how long he had been standing there when he found himself in the doorway between the shop and the back, bead strings from the curtain draped glistening and cold over his naked shoulders, a cold cup of tea in his hands.

Manny hovered beside him, eyebrows halfway up his head. “Bernard? Bernard? Bernard?” He poked Bernard with a tentative finger. “Bernard? Bernard?”

Bernard turned his head to give him an even stare. “Stop that,” he said, very delicately, “or I will remove your eyeballs from their sockets and shove them up your urethra.”

“Oh. All right.” Manny took the cup out of his hands and slipped by him, into the kitchen. After a moment, there came the familiar domestic clatter of Manny _doing things_ in the the kitchen. Bernard didn’t pretend to know how it worked. 

He fished his cigarettes out of his trouser pocket. It felt like a double-fag moment, so he lit two. 

Manny called from the kitchen. “You’ve been standing there for fifteen minutes. Gods knows how long before I got back. What happened? And why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

Bernard took a drag from both cigarettes. Once upon a time he would have had to suppress a wheeze; now he imagined his lungs like worn, filmy things that couldn’t raise a tremble, let alone a cough. “I don’t know. There was this man, he bought some books, then he showed me a card trick, then he said something about sex, and I don’t know what happened then. Who cares?”

Manny appeared at his elbow with a hot cup of tea steaming in his hand. “Fresh one?”

Bernard knocked it out of his hands with a flick. “I can’t be doing with tea at this time of day. I’m going to the pub. Look after the shop.”


End file.
